Marty

I saw Martin Scorsese on the red carpet at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival this year. More accurately, I saw a ton of people flock around Martin Scorsese and conceal him from my view.  It was really tricky to get a clear shot, but I enjoyed the challenge.  Honestly, I think my pictures of James Franco from last year turned out much better (a few were posted here), mostly because the dude was taller.

Recent concerts, part 1: Billy Corgan

We attended a couple of concerts during the last week. The first was quite an amazing, unique experience. It was put on by Billy Corgan (front man of The Smashing Pumpkins and hero from my teenage-plus years) and a few of his friends (Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction included) at a coffee shop named Muddy Waters here in Santa Barbara. Yeah, a coffee shop. I couldn't believe it at first either.

Tickets sales were limited to 100, making for an intimate show with an artist I once saw headline in front of crowd of 100,000 on the streets of Minneapolis in the late 90s. I've seen him play a few other times as well and waited all day to "meet" him once at an autograph signing, but last Thursday sort of makes all of that irrelevant.

R and I arrived 20 minutes before the show and ran into actor Paul Walker on the street talking to somebody about how he wanted a ticket. That's right -- we were going to a show that Paul Walker couldn't get into. I had bought our tickets online a week earlier after seeing an announcement about them on Twitter. Strangely they were on sale two hours before they were supposed to be, giving me an advantage over anyone who didn't bother to check early.

The venue for this concert was not much bigger the living room of our condo. Billy and the band suddenly appeared at one end of the room, warmed up for a few minutes, and started playing. There were no stage lights (practically no stage at all) and little amplification. The sound quality wasn't perfect, but it was better than I expected for the space.

The first set of songs was on the quieter/folksier side. Maybe I'm getting old, but that's the way I prefer it these days. Billy was trying out new tunes and playing some covers rather than relying on Pumpkins hits or even his previous solo material. He is known for moving forward rather than repeating himself, even if it displeases the crowd. He didn't have to worry about that in front of this group of mega-fans. At one point somebody shouted "Play whatever you want Billy!" rather than requesting a tune. That was refreshing. I'm more than willing to put my faith in an artist to pick out the right tunes.

The second set was electric and pretty much set the place on fire (we had the sweat to show for it). One thing I always I liked about the Pumpkins is that even their harder rocking songs have strong melodies behind them. That's what sets them apart from a metal band. They also have such dynamic range – slow to fast, soft to loud; sometimes within the same song – that makes for an incredibly compelling listen, even the first time through.

The entire show is available for listening here, if you're interested. There are a few places where I can actually identify R chatting between songs in the recording. We were only three rows back after all.

The complete performance was outstanding, but if you’re going to pick only a few songs to check out, I really recommend "Widow Wake My Mind" and "Freak." Those were two specific instances when I became totally lost in the music, eyes welled up and heart full. Finding moments like that is the goal of every concert-going experience for me. It's unfortunate they occur as rarely as they do.

On top of all that, we got to meet Billy afterwards. He was standing around outside, chatting it up with people, posing for photos... no security, no lines, just a gathering of people cooling off after a warm show. What a night it was! A week later I still can't get the experience out of my head.

See a few more of my photos from the show here.

And read a review from the local paper, as well as some additional audience comments, right here.

Marblehead

We flew to the other side of the country last weekend to attend the wedding celebration of S&Q, whom we became good friends with during our time in Delaware. When you move away from friends you sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort to keep in touch. With S&Q, it is. They are a fun couple who appreciate art and adventure in a way similar to us. It was great seeing them, along with some other old friends and some new ones too.

Our red-eye landed in Boston at 8:30 Friday morning and then we drove north to the little coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts for an eventful weekend. The ceremony itself was exclusive to immediate family and the wedding party, but there was no shortage of activities to keep us occupied. We took a ride on a lobster boat, participated in a scavenger hunt (we won!), competed in a newlywed game (we won again!), lounged by a pool, ate some good meals, danced to live Irish music, and even had the chance to explore some neighboring towns (e.g. Salem and Gloucester). It was well-planned and well-executed weekend thanks to Q and my lovely R.

Here are a couple other notable occurrences from the trip:

1) We ran into a girl who lived on R's floor during their freshmen year of college. I knew her too. She just happens to be married to one of the groom's best friends from high school. So let's get this straight... We went to school with this girl in Minnesota. She now lives in San Francisco, CA, but she was attending a Massachusetts wedding for a couple her husband knows from Delaware. Not sure if you followed all that... the bottom line is that we couldn't believe it was her. This was definitely a situation that called for the overused "small world" statement.

2) Maya Rudolph (from SNL and Away We Go) showed up poolside at the bed & breakfast we stayed at. R and I were the only ones out there when she and some guy -- possibly her director husband, Paul Thomas Anderson, who was disguised in shades and a hat -- walked out to take a photo of the courtyard. Maybe he was scouting locations or something. According to the IMDB, Maya is in Marblehead shooting a new Adam Sandler movie. Anyway R said to her something along the lines of "Do you want me to get out of the way [of the photo]?" And Maya, standing right over R's shoulder, replied by saying she was trying to get out of the way too. It's funny how our brushes with celebrity typically happen when we're away from southern California.

I didn't go crazy taking photos during this trip, but you can see what I have here.

Memorial weekend in photos

The long weekend was wonderful. We spent it around home, which is by no means a let down when home is Santa Barbara. We more than managed to keep busy. Rather than try to describe everything we saw and did, I'm going to let the photos do (most of) the talking.

We attended the Flight of the Conchords concert. It sold out a while ago, but more tickets became available the day of. We bought them an hour before the show and actually ended up with decent seats (my cell phone's camera, used for this shot, makes everything appear farther away than it actually is, I swear). An ex-James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, was also in attendance, sitting with his family only a few rows ahead of us.

The next morning we marveled in the amazing plants at Lotusland. I snapped a bunch of photos, the best of which can be seen here.

R got to try out her new bike (color still subject to change) when we went for a long ride in the afternoon.

We walked up to the Mission and saw some talented chalk artists at work during the I Madonnari festival.

The first of our two boat rides over the weekend was set up through our Newcomers group and featured a tour of the harbor in a fishing boat built in 1917. According to the Maritime Museum, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn once fished from this same boat. We were the only Newcomers to show up for the event, so it became our own private tour.

Our second boat ride was the next day. A friend from church took us sailing along the coast. R woman-ed the helm for part of the trip, as pictured above.

We wrapped up the weekend with a picnic near the Mission, allowing us to check on the progress of the street art as well. We drank Chardonnay with strawberries and some specialty cheese that really knocked our socks off.

I love this town.

The red carpet

Clint Eastwood, Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz, Josh Brolin, Mickey Rourke – these are some of the celebrities we saw on the red carpet (and on stage) during this year's Santa Barbara International Film Festival. R and I have been volunteering at and around the entrance to the biggest theater in town during the last couple of weeks. As a guy who is enthralled by Hollywood filmmaking and the entertainment industry in general, I really enjoyed having this glimpse into the realm of fame and experiencing first-hand the charisma of stars who are followed by a near-constant glow of flashbulbs.

As R put it, it was like watching TV without the editing. Stripped of that editing, you really get the chance to see the stars for who they really are. Eastwood was incredibly sharp during his on-stage interview/retrospective and shared some fascinating tidbits about acting and directing... and both at the same time. Cruz's interview was slightly less insightful, but she came across as very down-to-earth yet, of course, amazingly attractive. For some reason I liked the Rourke tribute best. The guy proves that you can become famous on talent alone. He was the least star-like of anybody: he misspoke a few times, disappeared from the stage whenever clips of his work were played (and didn't always make it back in time), and generally didn't appear comfortable with his fame. But the film clips they showed demonstrated an enormous talent for acting. See him in The Pledge or Sin City for an example, not the mention The Wrestler, for which I guarantee he wins the Oscar.

The volunteer work involved a lot of standing around but was pretty low stress and served to give us an up-close look at the ongoings. One night we tore tickets at the main entrance to the theater. Another night I functioned as a security guard (yeah, intimidating me), stopping patrons and people wanting a look from coming through a side entrance. It was funny to hear some of the reasons why people thought they should be let in, e.g. “I just had knee surgery; you can’t make me walk all the way around to the front.” The occasional VIP would laugh at me when I tried to stop him and say something like “Haha -- I’m in charge of this festival,” as he kept on walking. As an unpaid volunteer without proper training, I tended to give folks like that the benefit of the doubt and let them pass.

The unfortunate part of being a volunteer is that we were not allowed to carry a camera, so my photos from the events are limited. The picture above was taken on a night off as we were passing by the theater on our way to the bar. The guy there was about half way done replacing David Fincher (whose interview I missed) with Mickey Rourke on the marquee. On my last night of volunteering I did some pre-production set up, which meant I had time to go home and change out of my volunteer shirt and grab a camera before the tribute to Mr. Rourke started. There are a few pics from that event in this gallery, but I'll bring the one below to your attention. Do you recognize this childhood hero of mine?

Afternoon in the museum

We are feeling a little New Yorked out after making another day trip to the city on Sunday. An old friend of R's and her husband were vacationing there, so we met up with them as well as some other mutual friends from the area. Our first stop was the American Museum of Natural History. A big, interesting place it is. Due to time constraints we had to take an abbreviated tour, but I can see how the place could take days to explore.

Oh yeah -- we had a star sighting at the museum. We saw this guy. You may have seen him in Roseanne or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Okay, so maybe calling him a star is stretching it, but he was famous enough for me to recognize his face and voice while I loosely trailed him through the dinosaur exhibit.

From there we worked our way through Central Park and relaxed on some shaded lawn. The weather was just barely on the hot side of perfect. We watched a roller-skate dance party, ate some ice cream sandwiches, and paid our respects at Strawberry Fields for the third time.

Following that, four of us went out for an awesome dinner at a restaurant on Houston named Jane. I highly recommend this place, especially if you happen to know one of the servers. My steak was already reasonably priced, but with all the freebies (champagne, calamari, cheese gnocchi, dessert wine, banana brulée) from our friend who waits/tends there, we made out like bandits -- stuffed bandits. Holy cow that was some good food.

We finished the night by meeting up with the rest of the group again for some Sapporo at a Japanese restaurant in the East Village... and then we made the late night trip home. It was quite a day. Recounting it now reminds me of why R and I were so worn out on Monday.

At least we're getting to the point now where we've seen the major touristy things in NYC already, so now when we go we can just enjoy it and not have to worry about checking things off our list. I also slacked off on the picture taking this time, so I don't have anything worth sharing. Sorry about that. Maybe next time.

A night in New York

The city was hopping this weekend, and we faced the hustle and bustle head on. We sardined it in Rockefeller Center, browsed the window displays on 5th Avenue, caught a glimpse of Alec Baldwin on the street while eating dinner, and spent the night at our accommodating friend Ben's place in the East Village. Oh, and there was one other thing...

David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (he prefers it typed in all capital letters) was playing in one theater in the entire city, and we were there Saturday night. It should come as no surprise to anybody that I liked the film. It is bizarre and uncompromised, beautiful and haunting. Only time will tell how I rank it among Lynch's other work. I remember finishing my first viewings of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive with a similar feeling. His movies leave me in awe, yet somehow unsatisfied. They come close to making sense but purposely do not. That's what leaves me wanting more. I'm anxious to see IE again--to literally feel it projected on the screen (the volume was so high, the entire theater vibrated to the opening shot of a needle grinding on a record), to refresh my fading memory of the hallucinatory visions, to try to figure it all out.

A lot could be said about the movie--a lot has already been said--but I'm not going to go into detail here. There are plenty of reviews online that discuss it at length, if you're interested. Try to see it for yourself when it gets a wider distribution, and then let's discuss it over a cup of coffee or a Heineken.